Next came notes and sketches and especially charts, because I love making charts. Sometimes I make charts in Illustrator, sometimes I make charts in my notebook. (Harry loves notebooks, especially Moleskine notebooks, and he gave me this one for Christmas.)

Then swatches, calculations, more notes and more charts. All to make a new winter hat for me.

Then there was knitting, to make a new winter hat for me. Knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting. There was ripping, of course–because Life, as a wise woman once observed, is often Like That.

But there was more knitting than ripping. At last, there was binding off and blocking of the new winter hat for me.

So why, please, am I sitting tête-à-tête with what is plainly a roaring twenties-inspired woman’s cloche?

A hat that would, to put it mildly, strike an incongruous note if paired with my customary winter ensemble of biker jacket and jeans?

That a meticulously planned piece of knitting should transform itself, phantomwise, between cast-on and blocking suggests either that I am prey to the twilight machinations of wool pixies; or that I am apt to veer wildly off course because I am easily distrac

Where Was I? Am I? Shall I Be?

One of the strongest knitting Podcasts out there is Mike Wade’s Fiber Beat. I’m honored to be the guest for Episode 14, and to have a signed copy of It Itches offeredas the prize for the latest contest. Dolores was less pleased. Certain of her tastes and proclivities are given a thorough airing at the start of the program; she was going to sue, until her legal counsel pointed out that this would mean getting off the sofa.

I’m excited as a cat at a midnight mouse buffet to be heading to New York City next week to be part of the first-ever Vogue Knitting Live! (the exclamation point! makes it even more exciting!!) event, after which I bounce back home long enough to chuck clean socks in the suitcase before heading south to Houston, Texas.

I had a similar hat-hijacking incident once... I was clearly knitting myself a striped beanie shaped with shortrows, and somehow ended up with a striped fedora after blocking! Good thing I'm more of a 'process' knitter...

You've struck fear into my heart. I have been working on this hat pattern in my head. Soft, feminine, sort of an extended tam kind of affair. I have the yarn, Starmore none-the-less. I have the idea all pictured. I'll tell you what, if it ends up all manly-biker, maybe we could trade?

I'll take it ... I have a great face for hats ... unfortunately (for me) my hat factory churns out product almost exclusively for my son and his friends...or, since we all want the hat maybe you could just publish the pattern and then, possibly, some day/year I will make a hat for myself...

oh, and the captcha is "mingwot" which, I think, would make a great name for the hat pattern, don't you agree? Random and cool and totally unexpected, like the cloche.

Give thanks it's a hat. I once spent hundreds - dollars and hours - on a mohair shawl done entirely in linen stitch, with visions in my mind's eye of the elegant Milanese woman I watched gliding through the Galleria in HER mohair shawl. When mine was completed I did not resemble said Milanesa. Big red furry Sasquatch is more like it.

Let's hope you're not knitting the socks before you chuck them in the suitcase for Texas. TPTB only know what might come out. And then there would be the issue of the stinky (and potentially cold) feet.

All my ideas are already listed by previous commenters... Publish the pattern? Gift for your sister?

Selfishly, I cannot help but think that if it becomes a gift for your sister, I may be able to see it in person... maybe even try it on for just a moment... I think it would compliment my eye color quite nicely. ;-)

On the other hand, I hope the hat you dreamed of is in your very near future.

I can't help you with the cloche; they're not my style. Although it did occur to me that it might make a nice giveaway gift. But I see I'm not the first to suggest that. If you're passing over Lafayette, IN on your way south, look down and think of us, freezing here, while you head to Texas. I'm jealous!

Publish the pattern! I love it, and would be so tempted to make it, just to see how I do look in a cloche. I just want a warm winter hat that does not ride up over my right ear. Not the left, just the right.

I had something happen to a tam I finished knitting on New Year's Day. It was Jared Flood's Beaumont design in the called for Fresco yarn, and it looked great before blocking (it matched gauge and was only very slightly puckered).

In blocking it grew dramatically (I could wear it as a ski mask if it had eyeholes). I'm not sure I can block it down to human sized.

Perhaps it has something to do with the colors I chose -- almost an exact match of the blue and gray you used for your hat. There may be a curse that neither of us is aware of.

Thank you for helping me to laugh and recover from the trauma catching up with Nigel's funeral on the radio.

I say hang corks off it and see if you could pass it off as Australian. Oh and definitely publish it, whatever it was supposed to be, it's certainly beautiful and a lovely piece of knitting, if that's any consolation?

I say, felt the cloche, upside-down it...nice little catch-all for a table somewhere...or donate it...or give it away to a twenty-something inspired by the twenties...or, hell, will it go with The Poncho??

Wool pixies - now you tell me! I have been reading the Ravelry forums (fora?) for years, faithfully, and no one there ever warned me about the wool pixies. That must be what happens to my spinning... such drastic changes between vision and results can only be explained by pixies. Now, how do I get rid of them?

As for the Cloche, you shoudl publish that pattern on Ravelry as soon as possible -- it clearly has a destiny far beyond your own head! Good luck with the next hat --may it be actually for yourself this time :)

Just listened to Fiber Beat. Great podcast. I had to laugh about the New Yorker cartoon fears. For Christmas my brother gave us a bound copy of all the cartoons he had had rejected by the New Yorker. They send a very polite rejection, by the way.The cartoons by George Booth are my favorite.

I am beginning to see the myriad advantages to my knitting of my personal style which runs the gamut from very feminine to not at all feminine, also my brother is a good place to put any accidentally masculine hats.

Face it, we Chicagoans will wear anything if it keeps our heads warm. I suggest you keep it for that special blustery snowy day when you need just that special bit of wimsy and warmth. I suggest it for tramping down Michigan. Tramping as in walking ;-)

. . . if cloches or the colors are not her style, I suggest frogging the darn thing. Reuse the yarn to knit the kind of man's cap for which it is obviously well suited: a striped, rib-knit ski cap. Pom-pom optional.

A lovely hat, please do publish the pattern. The brim is great, and I think the colorwork would be fun in two shades of blue.And get out some nice sportweight wool so you can knit yourself a simple ribbed cap for New York City. It's cold here.

Having met you in person, I don't think this will match your trademark ensemble. However the hat is truly an excellent piece of work and I would love to have the pattern. Thanks for the humorous take on your newest creation.

I'd love the pattern... but I'd suggest that for yourself you snip a couple threads about 2 inches from the edge (more or less depending on your taste in ribbing), separate the two, pick up the live stitches and do a k2, p2 ribbing, then cast off.

Having just seen and enjoyed The King's Speech, we wonder whether you might have inadvertantly been channeling your inner Queen Mum, or for that matter, channeling Helena Bonham Carter *swoon* and much more regard for TQM's heretofore overlooked by us wit and verve: once strolling up a staircase lined with bright young guardsmen she turned to Noel Coward, strolling with her, and murmered, "I wouldn't, Noel. They count them before they place them out."Another vote for publishing the pattern please, and either giving your sister or a random-drawing winnner the hat as she currently is.

Ditch the biker jacket. Find a corduroy jacket for a "professorial look" and the hat works just fine. (Love it, BTW!)

PS Remember helping me in Eureka to get close-ups of sterling pcs? Finally got my camera to do it. You helped me to not be afraid to play around with it. (Now if I can only remember which buttons I pushed ...) :>

buy c9 gold you laugh at me for being different, but I laugh at you for being the same, the past is gone and static. Nothing we can do will change it. The future is before us and dynamic. Everything we do will affect it cheap c9 gold, don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first c9 money.

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